What is pu

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janKipo
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Re: What is pu

Post by janKipo »

Working forward this time.
I don't think I can blame the cat, though thanks for the suggestion. I'll use it next time. probably 'pali pi nanpa tu' for 'second job' the other seems to mean "this works twice"

Your complaint only works if the unmarked sentence is taken as immediate present tense rather than as generic. Of course, it can be either - or both. It was meant to be generic, but I don't know how to show that (immediate present is easier: 'tempo ni la').

Alas, [p>r}&{q>r) is not what you have but rather "If it's morning, I eat, and, if I'm empty, I'll eat," two separate conditionals. Yours is ((p&q)>r) and that is equivalent to (p>(q>r))
'tenpo suno sin la' is clearer, 'jo e ala'

We also have imperatives and optatives (initial 'o' with or without following subject). I suppose bare NP co,e out asinterjections. In any case, the grammar does not only give the structure of sentences, but all the parts of sentences: NP, PP, Modifier, and so on. S node is the point on a tree from which the descending branches form a sentence.

I'll check the stuff over there.

Japanese looks very Germanic at this point "das da sitzende Maedchen ist meine Tochter." (rough but the general idea is right.) English, as you note, tends to put those things after.

Designers don't have to stop, but the often do. I haven't seen a good sentence contour design for any conlang. But the, I haven't seen a lot for natlangs either. The Wycliffers used to be pretty good at it, though.
jan Ape
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Re: What is pu

Post by jan Ape »

I've heard my different uses for "pu" but is there an official one? Is it use like a period/semi colon/question mark , etc. Is it used like "that" as in "I saw that you were here"? How is it used actually and how does that apply to "sina pu" meaning "you have the official Toki Pona Book"?
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jan Josan
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Re: What is pu

Post by jan Josan »

There is no definition for 'pu' yet. All we have to go on is it's place on the wiki's list of words, random internet sitings next to photos of bigfoot, and a hope that it is more useful than just "uncarved block" or "toki pona book".
janMato
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Re: What is pu

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jan Josan wrote:There is no definition for 'pu' yet. All we have to go on is it's place on the wiki's list of words, random internet sitings next to photos of bigfoot, and a hope that it is more useful than just "uncarved block" or "toki pona book".
This is great fun, it's like trying to decipher dead languages or something. The "pu" as comma theory started in the French wikipedia in 2006!

8/12/2008
http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 0&start=45 This appears with one of the earlier sightings of the newest words.

1/8/2006 (!) Long time ago if I'm reading the wiki history correctly.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_pona "Le mot pu est une sorte de virgule utilisée pour éviter certains contresens. Son usage est cependant rejeté par la norme officielle."

Given that "pu" has been around for so long, this some how changes things. It's more like it is a reserved key word that has been held in reserve for a long time instead of a new grammatical particle invented for an immediate need.

tempo ni la mi tawa li alisa e jan pi noka suli.
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jan Josan
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Re: What is pu

Post by jan Josan »

interesting indeed!
tempo ni la mi tawa li alisa e jan pi noka suli.
which makes me realize, why is 'noka' not on the new list of toki pona words?
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Re: What is pu

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jan Josan wrote:interesting indeed!
tenpo ni la mi tawa li alisa e jan pi noka suli.
which makes me realize, why is 'noka' not on the new list of toki pona words?
That explains why I miscounted when monsuto came out. I seriously doubt noka is archaic, it hasn't committed any crimes.

jan li tawa noka tawa esun.

tenpo pi mi lili la mi tawa noka e linja pi nanpa luka luka tawa tomo sona anpa kiwen walo anpa telo pi laso suli lon kon lete.
Last edited by janMato on Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
janKipo
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Re: What is pu

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tempo pi mi lili la mi tawa noka e linja pi nanpa luka luka tawa tomo sona anpa kiwen walo anpa telo pi laso suli lon kon lete.
I take it this is grampa's tale about the good old days -- and how easy you young whippersnappers have it now. But it falls apart early on -- and late. The condition is kinda cute. "I made the tenth line walk" Do wha? Presumably, "I walked ten miles" (or whatever metric), but we have neither the metric nor how to talk about using numbers of units, except that this particular usage is taken. The double 'tawa' is possible, I suppose, but seems a waste, especially here where there is, in fact, no DO: 'mi tawa noka tomo sona' (small ambiguity problem, but part of one too big to worry about here). Of course, the school is not just a tomo sona but one modified by 6 further phrases -- maybe 7, though the last might be a PP at the end. I suppose that all those phrases are meant not to modify 'tomo sona' and what develops from that core, but to be adverbial conditions on the walk "through white hard falls" and "through wet falls of the big blue" "in the cold air' (a PP after all). But that is not what they are. I suspect the best place for them (better than following sentences rhetorically) is in the conditions:
'tenpo pi mi lili la kiwen walo li anpa la telo pi laos sul li anpa la mi ... lon kon lete. Still don't have the ten parsangs in there.
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Re: What is pu

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janKipo wrote:tenpo pi mi lili la mi tawa noka e linja pi nanpa luka luka tawa tomo sona anpa kiwen walo anpa telo pi laso suli lon kon lete.
I take it this is grampa's tale about the good old days -- and how easy you young whippersnappers have it now. But it falls apart early on -- and late. The condition is kinda cute. "I made the tenth line walk" Do wha?
Oh I see. Intransitive. I walked (myself) for 10 miles.
janKipo wrote: Presumably, "I walked ten miles" (or whatever metric), but we have neither the metric nor how to talk about using numbers of units, except that this particular usage is taken. The double 'tawa' is possible, I suppose, but seems a waste, especially here where there is, in fact, no DO: 'mi tawa noka tomo sona' (small ambiguity problem, but part of one too big to worry about here). Of course, the school is not just a tomo sona but one modified by 6 further phrases -- maybe 7, though the last might be a PP at the end.
I could swear you've implied that TP, when written non-recursively, the prep phrases can only modify the verb. When one reads things recursively, it can ambiguously modify preceding nouns in preceding preps and maybe even the noun in the nominative slot. Which means it's readers choice to decide if "I shot the elephant in my pajamas."
janKipo wrote: I suppose that all those phrases are meant not to modify 'tomo sona' and what develops from that core, but to be adverbial conditions on the walk "through white hard falls" and "through wet falls of the big blue" "in the cold air' (a PP after all). But that is not what they are.
Oh, I see. anpa isn't an official preposition. I had in mind, "under the snow and rain, in the cold"
janKipo wrote:'tenpo pi mi lili la kiwen walo li anpa la telo pi laos sul li anpa la mi ... lon kon lete.
That's a good way to side step a missing preposition.

I notice in the old official def, it says
"n bottom, lower part, under, below, floor, beneath"
Ref http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Toki_Pona/WordTpEn

How is "below" or "beneath" or "under" a noun in English? Should have been, space-below, area-beneath, area-under

The draft new wiki seems to imply the phrase "lon anpa" means the "under"
http://en.tokipona.org/wiki/Talk:anpa

mi tawa e sama tawa nasin pi linja pi suli mute tawa tomo sona lon anpa kiwen walo lon anpa telo pi laso suli lon kon lete.
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janKipo
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Re: What is pu

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1. Well, you have a transitive "I caused the line to go on foot". But, yes 'mi tawa noka' is intransitive and has no point for either vector (aside from mentioning a goal) nor for a tensor of any sort.

2. tp as it stand now definitely has the final PP modifying the verb (or the whole sentence -- it is hard to distinguish) I'm not sure what this has to do with recursion, however. At most we have, at the moment, that there can be more than one PP at the end, and more than one VP before that and so on. No quite recursion. Now, recursion comes about, if, in the descent from a node of a certain label, we come to another node with that same label. So, although the rules don't show it very clearly, it does seem that in the expansion of an NP node we could come to another NP node (connected in by 'pi') and so on around. Now, what you raise is the question whether a PP can modify and NP. The official answer seems still to be no, but the practice is clearly to allow it. But, having allowed it and facing the additional ambiguities it involves, the suggestion (mine, admittedly, but then, I'm writing this screed) is to require that these NP+PP use a 'pi'. Given this permission in the definition of NP and the fact that NP clearly occurs in the definition of PP, we could then get recursions all over the place. The 'pi' helps somewhat in the elephant case, of course, though, I suppose that strictly we would want the PP attaching to 'mi', not being free at the end in the more likely (but less funny) reading.

3. 'anpa' isn't a preposition (yet) and mixed with 'lon' means "at the bottom of, under" which would have worked just fine.

4. Dodging prepositions is a large part of what 'la' is for (witness all the time problems).

5. Well, Sonja is Canadian; who knows.

Last. I still want to know what this something like a roadly moving of a line of great size is. I thought you just walked a distance, but here you don't even move at all (or, at least, don't have to).
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Re: What is pu

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janKipo wrote:...Now, recursion ...
Wish I could post sentence diagrams. I'll have to see if there is any freeware software for diagramming sentences. I think sometimes when I'm thinking of recursion I'm thinking of strictly recursion (sentences embedded in sentences, noun phrases embedded in noun phrases) and sometimes I'm thinking of ways-of-building-sentences-which-are-very-few-levels-deep.
janKipo wrote:1. Well, you have a transitive "I caused the line to go on foot". But, yes 'mi tawa noka' is intransitive and has no point for either vector (aside from mentioning a goal) nor for a tensor of any sort.

...

Last. I still want to know what this something like a roadly moving of a line of great size is. I thought you just walked a distance, but here you don't even move at all (or, at least, don't have to).
The first tawa's gotta mean move in this case. I'm not seeing how you parsed this to mean lack-of-motion.

mi tawa lon nasin pi suli mute tawa tomo mi. I went on a long road to home.
That is harder to nitpick because one is physically on top of a road. Lemme try a space trip, with nothing to stand on.

mi tawa mun tan mun tawa mun pi suno mute tawa lijna palisa pi suli mute.

I astronomically-travel from the moon to the bright start on a sticklike long narrow thing of great size.
I plot a long vector from the moon to the bright star.

The tawa is like the emergency preposition. When no other preposition (or "e-phrase") seems to work, use tawa.

la-fragments and post verb pi phrases are equally vague, imho. If all three of them are the preposition-equivalents of last resort, then there isn't any reason to prefer one over the other.

mi tawa mun tawa nasin mute. I space travel for a long way.
nasin mute la mi tawa mun. Sounds too close to, "if the road is long, I will space-travel." Maybe la-fragments lose the conditional sense as compared to la-sentences?
mi tawa mun pi nasin mute. I still don't like these. Can't tell if the pi is an adverb, a restriction on the type of action or what.
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